Consumers' brand loyalty and desire for brand varieties play
an important role in the demand for food products and the profitability
of U.S. food marketing firms,

Firms use brand introduction as a key strategy to attract new
consumers and to retain current consumers with original brands, thereby
improving the firms' market shares.

Fluctuating food prices, however, may cause consumers to forego
brand loyalty and choose less expensive store or generic products. ERS and university researchers used household data from ACNielsen Homescan
Surveys from 1998 to 2003 to investigate U.S. consumers' brand
loyalty for Cheddar, shredded, and sliced American cheese.

Consumers appear to have strong brand loyalty when purchasing
Cheddar, shredded, or sliced American cheese. Some regional differences
in brand loyalty were observed, but the study showed little evidence of
brand switching. Consumers' current choices appear to be driven
mainly by past brand purchases. In some instances, brand-loyal
households even appear to switch among retail stores to purchase their
desired brand, A larger selection of brands or varieties does not induce
greater price sensitivity among U.S. consumers,

However, brand loyalty appears to decrease over time. Two
consecutive purchases made 8 weeks apart show less brand loyalty than
such purchases within a 4-week period, Thus, brand loyalty depends on
not only frequency of purchases but also time elapsed between
consecutive purchases (memory), which likely explains marketing
strategies such as coupons with expiration dates, When brand switching
occurs, it appears to be within the top two or three brands in each of
the three types of cheese for all four regions.